National Assembly can enact new constitution —Afe Babalola

RATHER than amending a 1999 Constitution based on a faulty premise, there is the need for a total scrap of the constitution and commencement of a process towards the enactment of a new one, founder, Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti (ABUAD), Aare Afe Babalola has said. 

Describing the 1999 constitution as one which deserves no amendment but a complete overhaul, Afe Babalola called for a total scrap of the constitution in deference to the calls of Nigerians for a workable constitution. 

Controverting the position of Deputy Senate President, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, on the powers of the Senate to replace the 1999 Constitution, Afe Babalola argued that the National Assembly is actually empowered to effect the enactment of a new constitution. 

He described Omo-Agege’s position on the seeming unchangeability of the 1999 Constitution as unfounded, particularly against the antecedents of Nigeria’s constitutional exodus. Pointing to instances in the United States, United Kingdom and Senegal, Afe Babalola said the Act of Parliament does permit the conduct of referendums for major constitutional issues. 

Though he noted that paramount issues affecting the polity, in the form of memoranda, have emerged from the various geopolitical zones, he maintained that the 1999 Constitution remains a faulty premise to consider the noble propositions. 

The ABUAD founder also supported propositions for a return to the 1963 Constitution, which, he said, provided an equitable model for resource control and distribution, engendered infrastructure developments and national development across the country. 

Read Afe Babalola’s write-up here.